Please Come Back to Church, Pt. 1 – An Open Letter to Pastors

By / Aug 5

No matter how you cut it, 2020 has been a uniquely challenging year for all of us. We are a bit more than halfway through this year, and as much as we might hope for an uneventful conclusion, the specs don’t look good, given the fact that November brings an election. With all this in mind, it is important for Christians to demonstrate an otherworldly kind of patience and grace toward one another. Every criticism of one another should be tinged with an understanding posture. Our expectations should be realistic;  it’s not reasonable to expect every Christian and every church to “nail it” in terms of dealing with this wacky year. We have blind spots.

With that caveat in place, I want to plead with my fellow Christians to lean into the next half of this year with renewed intensity, instead of simply reacting. Part of what that looks like is coming back to church. And more than that, it means prioritizing our local gatherings. Here, then, is an open letter to the pastor who is still iffy on resuming gatherings once again (my next post will be an open letter to church members who are still iffy on coming back).

Dear Pastor,

As a brother-shepherd and co-laborer in the gospel, I sympathize with you. This has been a strange year. There’s no clear playbook on how to respond to the circumstances that have overwhelmed us in recent months. The ubiquity of information (and misinformation), the phenomenon of social media, and the technological sophistication of our age have all combined with a pandemic. The pandemic, like everything else in our culture, has officially been politicized and (consequently) weaponized, and this all has occurred in tandem with a societal boiling point surrounding racial tensions. Add to that, the rest of the world—for good or for ill—seems to look to the United States for how to deal with all of these circumstances, and so whatever happens here has a trickle-down effect into many other cultures in many other parts of the world.

And there you are. A mere man, pastoring a flock of Christ’s people in the midst of it all. Of course, every age deals with its own unique challenges, and “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc 1:9) in terms of the basic root-issues underneath their time-bound manifestations. Nevertheless, our own unique time-bound manifestations do appear to be a doozy. We know what Luther would do in the midst of a pandemic, but what would he do in the midst of a pandemic in a social media age, where disagreements about the pandemic seem to square up along political lines with alarming intensity?

All this to say, I feel for you. I am there with you. I know well the “no-win” situation you find yourself in. This is no season for the pastoral faint of heart. The thin-skinned among us feel deeply the frustration coming from all quarters. Sitting in your inbox right now may be any number of critical emails—one from the deeply concerned member who is outraged by your silence on social media and from the pulpit regarding race, another from a member who is outraged by your “making everything about race,” another from a member who is outraged by your announcement to resume services, and yet another from a member who is outraged by your announcement that the church will comply with your county’s safety regulations. (Praise be to God who roots out our man-fearing idols and forces us to put them to death!)

Some members want to stay home because they object to gathering and risk of COVID exposure. Other members want to stay home because they think that asking people to practice social distancing or wear masks is stupid and unnecessary. Still others want to stay home because they have simply grown comfortable with sleeping in on Sundays and watching your service live-streamed.

On top of all this, you’re probably watching your members try to work all these things out online and what comes of it is a virtual bloodbath—you’re seeing members tear down and demine and insult one another with vitriol and malice. Not only are you heartbroken by this, you also shudder at the thought of asking these people to enter back into a room with one another. And even if you did, there’s just no way the ethos of your gatherings will be “normal.” If, for example, your county mandates masks and social distancing, and if you decide to comply, then those masks and that distance will suck all the visceral intimacy out of the room. If, on the other hand, you don’t comply, or if your county doesn’t require all those safety measures, you’re still going to have the awkward situation of mask-wearers and non-mask-wearers. The former will be tempted to scoff at the latter, the latter will be tempted to despise the former.

Meanwhile, there your livestream capability is, enticing you to avoid all the messiness. “Go on,” it says, “go ahead and livestream your entire service in an empty room. Have your members ‘do church’ at home. Avoid the tensions. Avoid the mess. Avoid the awkwardness.”

My dear brother-pastor, please resist that man-fearing siren song. Please resume your services. At the risk of overstepping my bounds, let me urge you to not merely resume your services in person, but go out of your way to urge and plead with your people to come back. Please don’t let them believe that it’s possible to “do church” at home by themselves. It’s not. Go ahead and make them uncomfortable. I recognize that you will have to work through difficult questions regarding how you resume your gatherings, and they may feel awkward, but that’s ok.

The “new normal” of my own church is awkward. We wear masks, and try to practice social distancing. Before COVID-19 our congregation offered Sunday School Classes for our children during the main service, which means we were not a family-integrated church. Now, for the time being at least, we are—and there is a natural learning curve that comes with this. Not all of our families are used to having their children sit quietly for a long period of time, so our services have a lot more distractions and noises. We still practice communion, but communion COVID edition does not have the same kind of ambiance as it normally would—masked and gloved ushers spray your hands with sanitizer before dropping a chunk of bread in your hand and passing you a little cup of grape juice, ever so carefully, so as to not touch you. Communion COVID EDITION features the clunky motions of trying to lower your mask with a piece of bread in your hand, eating and drinking, and quickly placing your mask back on. It feels weird.

But pastor, the presence of weirdness does not imply the absence of meaningfulness. Your services may not feel meaningful. But regardless of what they feel like, they are. The ambiance of your pre-COVID days never made congregational singing or public prayer or public reading of Scripture or real-time sermons preached to members bodily present or communion into meaningful acts. Nothing you do turns those things into means of grace. They just are. Now, more than ever, we understand the fittingness of calling these elements ordinary means of grace. And your members need them. You need them. Don’t let them think that it’s possible to have them virtually—it’s not. (This is why we have decided to only stream our sermons. When we are all sheltered at home, we gave our members a liturgy, and repeated ad nauseum that the liturgy was to help facilitate family worship, and that the sermon was an additional supplement for their discipleship, but that none of it was “church at home.”)

I’ll say it again. Go ahead and make your members feel uncomfortable. Ask them to die to themselves and come back to worship alongside members they just chewed out on social media—go ahead and press them to have to interact with one another. Go ahead and pop the bubbles of members who think they are “having church” at home. Go ahead and urge parents to bring their rambunctious children to church, where they will hear half the sermon because they are tending to their kids every five to ten minutes. They need it, pastor. They need it, even if they don’t believe they do. Don’t deprive them. Don’t give them the impression that it is acceptable to disobey Hebrews 10:25. For your own soul, and for the souls of your flock, please, come back to church.

Sincerely,

Your Brother-Pastor.



Comfort in Christ

By / Jul 31

“Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn.”
Ruth 2:2

Downcast and troubled Christian, come and glean today in the broad field of promise. Here are abundance of precious promises, which exactly meet thy wants. Take this one: “He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” Doth not that suit thy case? A reed, helpless, insignificant, and weak, a bruised reed, out of which no music can come; weaker than weakness itself; a reed, and that reed bruised, yet, he will not break thee; but on the contrary, will restore and strengthen thee. Thou art like the smoking flax: no light, no warmth, can come from thee; but he will not quench thee; he will blow with his sweet breath of mercy till he fans thee to a flame. Wouldst thou glean another ear? “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” What soft words! Thy heart is tender, and the Master knows it, and therefore he speaketh so gently to thee. Wilt thou not obey him, and come to him even now? Take another ear of corn: “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” How canst thou fear with such a wonderful assurance as this? Thou mayest gather ten thousand such golden ears as these! “I have blotted out thy sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud thy transgressions.” Or this, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Or this, “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.” Our Master’s field is very rich; behold the handfuls. See, there they lie before thee, poor timid believer! Gather them up, make them thine own, for Jesus bids thee take them. Be not afraid, only believe! Grasp these sweet promises, thresh them out by meditation and feed on them with joy.



Overcome Your Fear of Others By Fearing God

By / Jul 23

They were trapped. On one side a massive Egyptian army coming after them, on the other side the Red Sea. Hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, had just left Egypt, but now it seemed their doom was sure.

“When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly…They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness”” (Exod. 14:10–12).

It’s not hard to relate to the Israelites here. As I write this, millions of people around the world are locked down in quarantine from the coronavirus. Many feel trapped: the threat of sickness, economic hardship, loneliness and uncertainty about tomorrow – it’s a recipe for fear. We all have Red Sea moments and would prefer to avoid them if we could. When we read through the account of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, the exit came with a dramatic display of 10 plagues: blood, frogs, flies, gnats, livestock die, and boils. Now God could’ve wiped out the Egyptians with one word. Why the plagues? What’s God up to? Before the seventh plague of hail, God instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh, “For this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exod. 9:16).

When Moses came to Pharaoh with the news it was time for him to let God’s people go, Egypt’s pompous ruler asked, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD” (Exod. 5:2). In his hubris, Pharaoh thought little of God, but the Exodus narrative shows how foolish he was to ignore the LORD. After Moses warned a seventh plague of hail was coming, he added a merciful warning to shelter man and beast lest they be killed. Their response? “Whoever feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses” (Exod. 9:20). Those who feared God, obeyed what He commanded.

In Scripture, fear is more than feeling terrified. The fear of man certainly includes that, but it also means revering people, needing them, or valuing their opinion so much that our decisions end up being controlled by them. We obey what we fear. We fear failure, over commit, get defensive, avoid risks, compare, envy, or twist the truth often because of what others will think of us.

Pharaoh didn’t fear God, he feared people. Perhaps he thought, “The Israelites have been our servants for over 400 years; I’m not about to be the one responsible for losing them. The cost of losing slave labor would be disastrous to our economy! I’m not about to let this Israelite deity threaten me, I’m Pharaoh!” Desperate to have others see Him as important, powerful and in control, Pharaoh hardened his heart and paid the price.

The sad irony is that when the people of God were pinned up against the Red Sea, they had the same problem Pharaoh did: the fear of man. I’m not saying they weren’t in a tough spot – I’d probably be shaking in my boots given the situation – but remember what they’d witnessed! The showdown between God and Pharaoh, his magicians, and his gods was a joke! God isn’t threatened when the nations rage, He laughs (Ps 2:4). With a mighty hand (Exod. 3:19), God delivered His people from a powerful nation that had enslaved them. When they left, it was Egypt shaking in fear, not Israel! If they could’ve remembered who was on their side, they could’ve laughed at the enemy instead of panic.

The ten plagues in Exodus 7-12 show us the glory of God. When God passed through the land of Egypt during the last plague God said, “on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD” (Exod. 12:12). All the idols of this world are nothing (1 Cor 8:4): “They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Ps. 115:5-8). God is different than man-made idols. He is the living God who sees our plight, hears our cries, moves mountains, and saves (Exod. 2:24-25).

Our problem, like the Israelites, is we tend to focus on that which worries us such that we lose sight of God, fall into fear, and let it control us, not God. Our Red Sea moments remind us the iron bars of fear exist because of a myopic view of God (see 2 Pet 1:9). I imagine if we could look back on today when Christ comes back on the final day, we’ll ask, “Why was I afraid?”

Pinned up against the Red Sea, all Israel had to do was remember God’s promise to get them to the land flowing with milk and honey (Exod. 3:8) and the greatness of God revealed in their Exodus. Because God doesn’t change, the God who parted the Red Sea, is our God. We may not have Pharaoh breathing down our neck, but our Red Sea moments aren’t reasons to fear, they’re opportunities to see what God can do. We may not know what or when He will act, but we need to hear what Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD” (Exod. 14:13a). The clearer we see God, the less we will fear man (Prov. 14:26).

Knowing how prone the people of God are to forget, God instituted the Passover meal as a means to remember and bolster faith (Exod. 12). When future generations would celebrate this feast and ask ‘What does this mean?’ They were to answer, “By a strong hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery” (Exod. 13:14).

In the same way, when we struggle with fear God has given us a meal to remember and bolster our faith (1 Cor 11:23-25). When we remember Christ, our Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7) we’re reminded of a second exodus. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, our mighty God delivered us from sin, Satan and death. With our King firmly fixed in our heart and mind, we’re able to say, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?” (Ps. 56:3–4)

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at the blog for Credo Magazine and is used with permission.



Wounded By Those We Love

By / Jul 22

Recently I sat with a pastor from another city who spoke of deep wounds he carried over how certain church members responded to him when they disagreed. Only hours later, I met with a husband pained by the careless comments made to his wife by fellow believers during their miscarriage.

What these two leaders shared in common was a vague feeling of betrayal. They grappled to reconcile the inconsistency between what these Christians affirmed and how they acted. I could relate to their struggle. I’ve been hurt by Christians who have professed their love and, sadly, I have at times contradicted what I say I believe and behaved in ways that hurt others.

Over the years, I’ve noticed an unexpected pattern of experience shared by many pastors. Something that, had it been whispered to me as a zealous young leader, I would have shouted down in defiant disbelief.

Our greatest trials often come at the hands of other believers.

Let that sink in for a minute. It sounds crazy. To ponder it can almost feel like betraying God; like we’re exposing the family secrets, or the dark underbelly of our people. But the sooner we see it, the better we’ll understand it. The sooner we see it, the easier it will be to interpret it.

The Code

Christians have a code we live by called the Bible. We also have a family that attempts to live out the code together called the Church. The family wants to hold each other accountable for what we believe. It all sounds so simple.

But when we think others in the family (particularly those that lead the family) don’t live up to that code, it can provoke some serious sin in the church. And it will happen at the hands of people who believe with all of their hearts that they are honoring God by treating you in dishonorable ways.

It’s a particular problem for leaders. J. Oswald Sanders once said, “A cross stands in the way of spiritual leadership, a cross upon which the leader must consent to be impaled.” It really surprised me to discover that the cross we must consent to be impaled upon is often the Christians we lead. Tucked away in conflicted corners of the local church, we begin to comprehend a glorious paradox. Christians will provide many of our greatest joys… but they can also become the cross upon which we must consent to be impaled.

But think about it. Why should we be different? We follow a Crucified Savior, and his cross was experienced in a similar way. His right hand man denied him, another betrayed him, and his best friends abandoned him in Gethsemane. Think about Isaiah’s description: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:3-4)

The world rejected Christ, but it was the religious that screamed, “Crucify him,” (Mark 15:13–14).

It’s funny. We don’t tend to see the cross through relational eyes, but that seems to be one of the important ways Christ experienced it. Paul too. Can you imagine waking up one day to find, “…all who are in Asia turned away from me” (2 Tim 1:15)? Paul seemed to have that sort of abandonment happen all the time. It was a cross upon which he consented to be impaled.

So if you ever find yourself as a leader under self-righteous scrutiny or abandoned by those who promised fidelity, cheer up and look towards your Redeemer. You’re in good company! And when you find yourself wiping another tear from your eye, wondering again if you even have the will to move on, always remember, “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Heb 12:4).

Take courage. Jesus was impaled so you can press on.

Editor’s Note: This originally published at RevDaveHarvey.com



The Imperative-Indicative Balance

By / Jul 21

Right application of Scripture necessitates Herman Ridderbos’s famous insight into Paul’s theology. Every imperative of Scripture (what we are to do for God) rests on the indicative (who we are in our relationship with God), and the order is not reversible (Acts 16:14–16; Col. 3:1–5; 1 John 5:1–5).[i] The human instinct with every non-Christian religion reverses the order, teaching that who we are before God is based on what we do for God. Thus, any preaching that is distinctively Christian must keep listeners from confusing, or inverting, our “who” and our “do.”

What Christians do is based on who we are in Christ. We obey because God has loved us and united us to himself by his Son; we are not united to God, nor do we make him love us, because we have obeyed him. Our obedience is a response to his love, not a purchase of it. We keep this indicative-imperative relationship clear, not by when we happen to mention each element in a sermon, but by making sure that the message is not done until listeners are motivated to obey God based upon God’s gracious provision for them.

Sometimes, we’ll lay a foundation of God’s provision as a motivational basis for the imperatives that follow; other times, we’ll detail the clear duties of the text before explaining the relationship with God that enables our obedience. There is a conceptual priority on the indicative that motivates and enables obedience, even if the imperatives follow in the actual presentation of the sermon.

If we try to establish a standard order or proportion for the mention of the imperatives and indicatives in our sermons, we will inevitably end up twisting texts in ways not intended by the original authors. We certainly should mention the imperatives and indicatives in various orders or proportions in different sermons according to the content and context of each biblical text. Still, the key to making any message gospel-consistent is making sure listeners do not walk away with the sense that their behavior is the basis of their redemption.

A sermon is not a sermon, if it includes no imperatives; a sermon without application is mere abstraction. But a sermon isn’t a Christian sermon if its ethical imperatives eclipse its gospel indicatives. A message that only heaps duty upon duty is mere legalism, even if the duties are in the text.

Proportions of imperative and indicative will vary, but listeners need to be able to discern the importance of each. We damage Scripture’s purposes, and the clarity of the gospel, if we do not pastorally consider what is needed for each element to be heard and lived.

A message that hammers on imperatives for 35 minutes, and then ends with a tossed in, “But remember Jesus loves you,” does not understand how the human heart functions. A message that mews about Jesus’ love for 35 minutes, and ends with an intangible, “So make your life count for him,” does not understand the human propensity to use grace to avoid obedience.

As pastors, we should aim for messages that enable people to honor our Savior with gospel-enabled obedience. To do this well, we must evaluate both the demands of a text and the disposition of our congregation. This will help us determine the proper balance between imperative and indicative.

If people don’t know what to do, then they cannot obey God. So imperatives of some sort are necessary. If people obey out of wrong motivations, then their so-called obedience doesn’t honor God. So indicatives that rightly motivate and enable must ground every imperative. The proportion varies, but both must be present with enough significance to inform behavior and stir affections for Christ’s honor.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at the 9Marks blog and as part of the 9Marks magazine.



Episode 88: FTC Mailbag

By / Jul 16

For The Church Podcast

A Resource from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

On this episode of the For The Church Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz discuss numerous listener-submitted questions and topics, including:

  • Virtual communion
  • Establishing elders
  • Balancing stay-at-home orders with the command not to forsake the assembly
  • Conspiracy theories
  • and more!


Stop Comparing Yourself to Well-Known Pastors

By / Jul 10

Preacher, you can preach better than John MacArthur, John Piper, David Platt, and H.B. Charles. I wonder if that surprises you? It should not. You can preach better to your flock than any of those world-renowned expositional preachers. If you played their sermons at your church by way of video or hologram, it would be far less effective than the biblically faithful, Christ-centered sermons you preach to your congregation. If this were not true, we should all just get recordings of preachers like D. Martyn Lloyd Jones or Adrian Rogers and sit out with the congregation on Sunday mornings.

You may not have the gifting of historic pulpit legends past and present, but you do have the same Word of God, gospel of Christ, and calling as a shepherd of Jesus Christ. You also have something they do not have: the specific flock entrusted to you by Jesus to shepherd with His Word.

Feed the Sheep
John Broadus was the first to teach preaching at Southern Seminary where I now have the privilege to do the same. Consider the personal way Broadus describes the preaching moment at the beginning of his classic, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons:

When a man who is apt in teaching, whose soul is on fire with the truth which he trusts has saved him and hopes will save others, speaks to his fellow-men, face to face, eye to eye, and electric sympathies flash to and fro between him and his hearers, till they lift each other up, higher and higher, into the intensest thought, and the most impassioned emotion—higher and yet higher, till they are borne as on chariots of fire above the world,—there is a power to move men, to influence character, life, destiny, such as no printed page can ever possess.[1]

What does it mean to be a shepherd under the Good Shepherd, possessing the Word of God and a particular flock of God (1 Peter 5:2, John 10:11, 2 Timothy 3:16, Acts 20:28)? Jesus, the Good Shepherd, said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). The Good Shepherd’s words, which are the God-breathed words of the entire Bible, are the food upon which His sheep feed; they “are spirit and life” (John 6:63).

As shepherds, our authority is based solely on the words we have from the mouth of God—the Scriptures (Matthew 4:4, 2 Timothy 3:16). Apart from the words of God, we are all sheep without a shepherd. Disciples of Christ, His sheep, continue to hear Christ’s voice today through the living voice of the Spirit-empowered preacher of God’s Word (Romans 10:14, Ephesians 2:17, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Preach the Word
God has always revealed Himself through His Word: He spoke the world into existence, He spoke to his image-bearers at creation, He spoke through the prophets and they proclaimed His Word, He spoke as the Living Word become flesh, He spoke through His apostles and they proclaimed His Word, and He continues to speak today through pastors who preach his Word.

Pastor, whether the flock you shepherd by preaching His Word is a 10,000 member mega-church in an urban center or a tiny rural church in small-town USA, you stand in that line as one ordained by God to speak His Word to His people. As hard as it is for us to believe, in faithful preaching of the Word of God, the listener is not simply hearing about Christ, they are hearing from Christ. Christ himself speaks through his feeble but faithful preachers. John Calvin asserts,

Christ acts by them in such a manner that he wishes their mouth to be reckoned as his mouth, and their lips as his lips; that is, when they speak from his mouth, and faithfully declare his word.[2]

The congregational shepherd stands face-to-face before the people of God as a living voice speaking the word of life (Philippians 2:16). Every follower of Christ longs for the day when Christ consummates His kingdom, and “they will see his face” (Rev 22:4). Until that day, the believer hears Christ through the voice of the shepherd that Christ has appointed to preach His Word in His church. The transaction between a particular group of spiritually-minded sheep listening and the living voice of a particular shepherd speaking, mediating to them the voice of the Good Shepherd through the Scriptures, is an intimate and personal reality that cannot be replicated by just any voice and any people.

Thus, many times a church member will tell their beloved pastor whose voice they know well, a voice that has taught them faithfully, having helped them again-and-again to hear Christ, “You are my favorite preacher in the whole world. I’d rather hear you preach than anybody else.” It is often not empty flattery, but reality. They are not suggesting their pastor is the most well-trained and gifted preacher in the entire world. Rather, they are expressing that they are his sheep who know and love his voice, and they recognize him as a unique gift from the Spirit of Christ to help them hear Christ in the Word of Christ.

Fulfill Your Calling
Pastor, here is the danger: You have been uniquely entrusted with a high and holy calling in a local church, and instead of spending and being spent, throwing yourself into the task with all of your might, you are wasting time being jealous of someone else’s charge and gifts. Faithful shepherding means trusting God with your task rather than trying to be God. It is doubtful that before Christ on the last day you will be wishing you would have had someone else’s sheep for which to give an account as the one charged with watching over their souls (Hebrews 13:17).

Saturate yourself in the “living and active” word of God (Hebrews 4:12), and use your living voice in the power of the Spirit to preach Christ to the flock with which you have been entrusted for the glory of God as long as you have breath. The end goal should be the same no matter your church’s size, location, or history: “Preach the gospel. Die. Be forgotten.”[3]

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on radical.net and then again at Prince on Preaching.

[1]John Broadus, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 2–3.

[2]John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, vol. 1, 381.

[3]Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf.



10 Flavors of Works-Based Salvation

By / Jul 9

By nature and by training we all seek solutions to our problem of sin. To varying degrees, these solutions include doing something—law keeping, good works, etc—to please or appease or satisfy the God who is one day going to judge us. The idea of contributing to one’s own salvation is universal. It’s the engine which propels every religion.

But you may say, “I’m not that religious.” Well, even people who are “not religious” feel this way—and their feelings are based on some version of being good.

Now there are many flavors of works-based salvation. Let me mention ten of them:

1. The Work of Philanthropy

“I’m going to give money. I’m going to contribute. I’m going to give to the poor. I’m going to see someone in need, and I’m going to meet that need. I’m going to make charitable gifts, and as I give I really cannot imagine in the final day that the Almighty would damn me. After all, look at all the money I’ve given.”

2. The Work of Service

“I’m going to volunteer. I’m going to pitch in. I’m going to give my time. I’m going to use my skill and expertise. I’m going to get my hands dirty for Jesus, or for whatever deity I think is in charge. I’m going to work, to do good, and to serve—whether it’s shoveling my neighbor’s walk or going to a food pantry. And, on judgment day, I just can’t imagine that God would watch a video of my life, of me serving on Thanksgiving Day with the homeless, and still send me to hell.”

3. The Work of Ritual

Confession. Confirmation. Communion. Baptism. Prayers. Beads. Candles. Church attendance. Pointing a mat toward a city and bowing down five times a day in the direction of that city. Whatever. Some sort of a ceremony is going to get me right with God.

I’ve been to funerals and so have you where the clergyman has stood and said, “We know that the dearly departed is going to one day be in the presence of God because they were baptized.”

4. The Work of Comparison

“Alright, I’m not the best guy in the world but I can point you to a million people who are far worse than me. If we’re looking at a bell curve, I’m on the plus side. By comparison, I’m in.”

5. The Work of Comprehension

“This whole thing is a riddle. And I’m going to figure it out and when I figure it out then I’m going to be in God’s good graces. If I learn enough about the Almighty, then I will be accepted. I understand and can articulate the salient points of the gospel; therefore, I’m a recipient of salvation.”

Side-note: these people can be tricky for a church. And if your church has elders, it’s where they are deficient. Just imagine: someone desires to be a member of your church, and your elders ask them to share their testimony of salvation. And they do—with precision and emotion. Your elders sit across the desk from someone as he or she tells them about how Jesus lived a perfect life, died in the place of sinners, and rose from the dead. Your elders listen as he or she describes trusting in Christ alone.

This person is correct on every point, and so—at my church, at least—we say, a few weeks later, “Welcome to North Shore Baptist Church.” But some time passes. And their life proves that all they knew were the facts. But truthfully, we could teach a parrot to say the facts. Jesus told us that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We need to remember that. There are many today who are unsaved and on the way to hell and yet have a very correct understanding of the gospel.

6. The Work of Decision

Walk that aisle, sign that card, pray that prayer. Well-meaning Christian pastors will tell you that if you simply make your decision to ask Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior then you are saved and you can doubt no more.

There’s that ridiculous story of the farmer who is standing in the field and doubting his salvation. He says to himself and to the Devil: “I’m going to make it secure right now and he takes a wooden post and pounds it into the ground.” And he looks to that post and says, “Right here, this is the time I made sure that Jesus is my Lord and Savior.” Other days, he’d be working in that same field, having doubts about his salvation, and he’d simply tell the Devil to look at that post which marked the day Jesus became his Lord and Savior.

The man is trusting in a post in the ground. It’s unwise to rely on a monumental, emotional decision that you made years ago as the ground for your assurance.

7. The Work of Restitution

“I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life so I need to go back and take care of it.”

I had a man tell me once that he went several years without tithing and now he is paying God back. “I’ve hurt some people in my life and I need to go and ask their forgiveness. I’ve stolen from people so I need to go to them and make things right. I need to go back and take care of the wrongs in my life. Once I’ve done that, then God will forgive me.”

8. The Work of Affliction

This looks like beating yourself up, or penance. “If I give myself hell here and now, then God won’t give me hell later.” Martin Luther, in an attempt to be saved, used to beat himself with a whip, literally, he used to flog himself until he realized that the just shall live by faith.

9. The Work of Meditation

“I can just go on a retreat and be quiet and still before God. He connects with me when I clear my mind. When I’m poised and quiet, God comes and meets me where I am. “

10. The Work of Seeking Affirmation

“I don’t know whether or not I’m saved but if I can get the elders to say that I am, or if I can get anybody else who is saved to tell me that I am, then I will find rest before God.”

Unsaved people add countless other contributions to their resumes in order to be right with God. By nature, we all feel like we need to do this. Our sinful prides says that, with God’s help, we have what it takes to get there. We just need to apply ourselves because, after all, I’m me.

But as reasonable as this seems, it’s wrong. In fact, it’s the opposite of the truth because even a drop of ink dropped on an Elvis autograph renders it trash. And any work which you try to contribute to your salvation, your justification before God, annuls the grace of God and insults the God of grace. You have absolutely nothing that God wants.

So come to Christ, but come to him with nothing.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at the 9Marks blog and is used with permission.



From Fear to Trust

By / Jul 8

When I first heard the account of George Muller’s life a few years ago, I was intrigued and frightened. By faith and through prayer Muller declared to a watching world and thousands of orphan children how God could provide for his own. Muller did not take a salary or ask for money to feed the orphans in his care, but trusted God to provide all their needs through prayer.

My intrigue with Muller’s life of trust was compounded when I met Jim Elliff and Steve Burchett and found that by the grace of God they were living this same lifestyle. That meant that the generous God who cared for Muller in the 19th Century was alive and well in the 21st Century. That scared me. It scared me because I thought God might lead me to live like that as well. I felt like the child next in line for discipline who was watching his brother being spanked and all I could think was, “I’m next.” At that point I understood that if God had led these two men to follow in Muller’s footsteps He could lead me there, too. The interesting story of a faithful patron for the fatherless in Britain became a little less comfortable.

A Terrible Sickness

Fast-forward a couple years. My new wife Rachel and I are sitting in our one-bedroom apartment crying. She is pregnant with our little boy, and her life has never been more difficult. This was one of the 17 times where she sobbed, “I can’t do this anymore,” before we went to the Emergency Room for hydration and medicine to stop her vomiting. My wife was in a seven-month ordeal of constant nausea and vomiting. We prayed more than we ever had before. The doctors call this rare condition Hyperemesis Gravidarum. It affects 1-2% of women for their first trimester of pregnancy. Rachel experienced it every day without relief until the moment she gave birth to our son.

What does this have to do with trusting God for money like Muller? Well, for the last four months of pregnancy, Rachel was so weak and sick that she needed constant care from me. So I took an unpaid leave of absence from work for that time. I knew that it was the right thing to do and that God would give us what we needed to live and to pay our medical bills. During those months, God provided thousands of dollars through friends, family, churches and anonymous givers. We were low and downcast, but our great God was providing! God was teaching us how to trust him with our lives by giving us no other option. As He drew near to us in those trying days, He became to us what He always should have been: our one true hope.

Ministry Decisions

Nearing the end of my time at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I was approached by Jim Elliff and Steve Burchett about an opportunity to join their ministry team at Christian Communicators Worldwide (CCW). This would mean that I would not seek a full-time paid position after graduation, but continue working part time while pastoring in Christ Fellowship of Kansas City. It also meant that we would start trusting God to provide what we lacked financially.

What began with fright has turned into a wonderful opportunity for our faith to grow and for God to prove Himself faithful in our lives. No longer do I fear the prospect of trusting God for what my family needs, because the Bible says He will provide and He has already proven in my life that He does. For Rachel and I this ministry direction is exciting and weighty. It is exciting because it is new and will stretch us in unfamiliar ways, and weighty because the world is watching.

Our prayer is that the way we conduct our life and ministry will serve as a testimony to believers and unbelievers that there is a God and He answers the prayers of His people. We are not seeking to appear more spiritual than we would have been if I had pursued full-time employment. We are also not trying to persuade others that this is the only way to walk by faith. Rather, we have discerned that this is the peculiar path that God wants us to follow so that we can devote sufficient time to the ministry He has called us to.

Our New Direction

What does this means for us right now? I will continue pastoring and working part-time. In addition to this I will minister through CCW by speaking, writing and teaching whenever the Lord gives opportunity, trusting Him to provide what we need. My ministry will be governed by the following criteria:[1]

1. We will not ask people for money or other resources to meet our needs. We will only ask the Lord. He may prompt people to give to us specifically, just as He did for Muller and as He still does for the Elliffs and Burchetts, but we are not soliciting funds.

I need to add something important here: Because some may be led by God to give to us, they of course need to know how to do that. A check for that purpose will simply need to be made out to “CCW” (leave the memo line blank) accompanied by a separate note that says something like, “It is my desire that this money be given to Kole Farney.” Funds that are not noted in such a way will go to the ministry. I hope you understand that this is in no way a subtle way to ask for money, but a realistic and necessary clarification so that people are able to obey God if He leads them to give. If anyone is interested in online giving, please contact me and I can explain how to do that.

2. I will offer all of my services in preaching and teaching free of charge. The motto of the communicators of CCW is “Freely you have received, freely give.” We prearrange not to receive love offerings or honoraria for any speaking engagement. We do ask that churches and organizations cover travel, food, and lodging, but there is no financial profit for us in traveling to speak. One of the benefits of this arrangement is that even smaller churches or ministries might be able to have us come.

We enjoy making a statement about the faithfulness of God to meet needs by preaching for free. We also are aware that such a practice might communicate to people that we are not greedy for money, but that we truly desire to preach the gospel for the benefit of the hearers and not our wallets.

3. We will not speak about the present state of our funds. Someone may ask Rachel or me, “How are you doing financially?” We anticipate our response to be something like, “God is taking care of us.” If we would make current needs known, we may look like we are asking for money (especially if the resources are scarce). Therefore, we will only speak about our finances in retrospect, sharing with others how God has taken care of us.

How is this all going to work out in the future? We do not know. I will continue working a part-time job and working with CCW until my hands are so full of ministry that I cannot do both with the time that I have. This, of course, will be up to God. In either case, God will be the One who provides for our needs as He does for yours. All that we have belongs to God and as a stewardship we are given differing portions of talents, money and possessions to serve Him with. For Rachel and I, our role in Christ’s Kingdom now includes CCW and we are eager to serve our King.

[1] These criteria draw heavily upon Jim Elliff’s article, “A Life of Trust,” and Steve Burchett’s article, “Trusting God Like Muller & Elliff: Our New Approach,” both available at www.ccwtoday.org.

Editor’s Note: This originally published at Christian Communicators Worldwide.



Brothers, Preach Your Heart Out — No Matter How Few People Are in the Room

By / Jul 2

I’ll never forget one of the last conversations I had with my grandpa. I was driving home from my church’s prayer meeting. I was tired. I was discouraged.

I had been pastoring for five months in Vermont. Our prayer meeting attendance had slowly dwindled. The excitement of having a new pastor ebbed, and summer activities and travel amped up. I’d decided to begin a “How To Study the Bible” series in the fall that we would go through on Wednesday evenings before our time of prayer. It was the first Bible study I’d created a graphic for. I advertised it for weeks and weeks. I sent out special e-mails. I studied and prepared and prayed.

Four people showed up.

As I drove home, I remembered that my grandpa had pastored faithfully for over 40 years in several small churches. Surely he had been discouraged about the number of people he preached to or taught a Bible study to. So I called him.

Here’s what he said that I will never forget: “God’s job is to worry about the number of sheep. Your job is to feed the sheep.”

What my grandpa taught me that night has echoed in my mind again and again. And he backed it up with the faithfulness of his life. He had consistently fed the sheep that God gave him even as he served in hard places like a small town in Utah.

Jesus told Peter: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). He didn’t tell Peter to only feed the sheep if the pasture was overflowing. If we think that Christ is only worthy of being preached to a larger church, or to vast amounts of people, or even to a growing amount of people, then we’re committing two major errors: we’re not valuing Christ highly enough, and we’re not valuing the people Christ values.

THE VALUE OF PREACHING CHRIST ISN’T DEPENDENT ON THE NUMBER OF HEARERS

When we tie our value as preachers to the number of people we’re preaching to, we devalue the Christ we preach. We forget that Jesus himself attended to small, even dwindling groups. Jesus is all-glorious. He is worthy of being proclaimed in both small churches and mega churches, both small towns and large cities.

When we promote missions work, we often talk about the fact that Christ is worthy to be proclaimed among every unreached people group in every country and every village, no matter how small or obscure. The same is true outside the mission field. He’s worthy to be proclaimed in every church, no matter how small or obscure.

THE VALUE OF THE PEOPLE YOU PREACH TO IS NOT DEPENDENT ON THE SIZE OF YOUR CHURCH

You don’t have to read far into the Gospels to realize that Jesus often ministered in the small places. He traveled to Jerusalem now and then, but he spent the bulk of his time in out-of-the-way places with people that were often looked down upon by the cultural elite. Yes, Jesus preached to thousands. But Jesus also healed one man with a withered hand in one small synagogue in small-town Galilee. And he preached in the small towns again and again (Mark 1:38).

I wrestled with this before I started pastoring in Vermont, the least-reached state in the U.S. On its best Sundays, the church had 50 people in the pews. The church I was in at the time had 300 on an average Sunday. I felt the temptation to think, Would I be wasting the gifts God had given me by preaching to fewer people?

But as I prayed through this, God helped me to see that this church was filled with brothers and sisters in Christ who needed to be fed the Word week in and week out. And this state was filled with people who desperately needed to know Christ as Savior. The needs of both believers and unbelievers are the same in any church, no matter the size.

DON’T DISDAIN WHAT CHRIST VALUES

I recently attended a gathering of small-town pastors and heard something that reminded me of my grandpa. Pastor Stephen Witmer said, “The gospel does not disdain what is small.”

He’s right. Witmer reminded us that God often works through small things. God saved the world through sending one baby. Jesus trained 12 disciples. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Only the Lord knows what he will do with an army of preachers committed to expositing God’s Word with precision and passion week in and week out in small churches across America.

Brothers, it bears repeating because we can be so tempted to believe otherwise: the value of preaching Christ is not dependent on the number of your listeners. The value of preaching is in Christ himself. His supremacy over all things makes all preaching valuable, whether it’s to 30 or 3,000 people.

So, to the glory of God, study and pray and preach with all your strength—no matter how many people are in the room.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at the 9Marks blog and is used with permission.